[Terr_]

> It is crazy they can't tell you how much you'll be paying before signing up.

Even further along the dystopic spectrum: Imagine if it worked like health care insurance. Even monthly bills would be only guesses subject to arbitrary revision.

[MiddleEndian]

I've tried to pay a healthcare bill for an operation and a followup that had been completed months prior, and they still would not tell me how much I owed. I just got sporadic bills in the mail and there was a single website where I could enter how much I wanted to pay them in total. I waited a couple months, walked to the hospital, and asked them for the sum. They told me they had no way to know. I paid what I thought I owed and then I guess somebody figured it out without telling me, so I ended up in collections for a two figure sum.

[wildzzz]

It's because insurance companies tell hospitals how much they'll pay for things but when you ask how much they actually cost, the hospital shrugs because no one is breaking down the prices. The various specialists may be independent of the hospital in terms of billing which only complicates things as you now have more than one bill (and they may be out of network for your insurance). The non-profit hospitals will usually work with people without insurance to figure how much they can afford to pay and just charge that. The actual costs are likely much more but no one really knows since insurance is likely overpaying to compensate the hospital's losses on caring for the poor.

[MiddleEndian]

It wasn't just future bills though. I waited months. I had received a bunch of bills, from them, on paper, and apparently missed some. I knew I probably missed some. Why not just tell me, in person or online, what the sum of the bills they've sent me so far is? They're calculating it at some point.

It was a decade ago, and I'm still salty about it lol. I think the hospital has a functional website now, because it's in their interest to get all of the money from customers instead of a much smaller percent from a debt collector anyway.

Regardless, I think if an organization can't tell people what they owe, it clearly doesn't need that money and should forfeit it.

[gwright]

My favorite example in this space is college tuition/room/board. This seems to be the only example of a service in which you have to share all your financial details with the vendor and then they will tell you how much it is going to cost.

[actionablefiber]

Many types of loans you can take out, where approval and interest are dependent on your credit history and assets, and also your tax burden to the government, are kind of like that too. Really anything where the amount charged varies with your ability to pay.

[gwright]

OK, but room/board/tuition is not a loan. The college is determining a discount, not the ability to pay back a loan.

[lotsofpulp]

Health insurance premiums are set annually. I don’t think insurance companies can legally change premiums after the insurance regular approved them.

[Terr_]

Not premiums, but claims.

"It was recently discovered that your procedure involved a duck, however the insurance company will only cover geese, so here is the revised bill... Er, an invoice, not the animal's."